


The Final Problem

by messageredacted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:22:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last few weeks are the worst ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Final Problem

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thegameison_sh poetry prompt:
> 
>  **Undo It**
> 
> Deep from within the changing colours of a life  
> that itself keeps changing, I know the leaves prove  
> nothing—though it  
>  does seem otherwise—about  
> how helplessness is not a luxury, not a hurt by  
> now worth all the struggling to take back, but  
> instead what we each, inevitably, stumble  
> sometimes into,  
>  and sometimes through ... As for  
> that grove-within-a-grove that desire has so long  
> looked like—falling, proof of nothing, carrion-birds  
> clouding the slumped boughs of the mountain ash—
> 
> I can almost see again: we'll drown anyway—why not  
> in colour? You're no more to me a mystery than I to you.
> 
>  _—by Carl Phillips, first published in GRANTA 110: SEX_
> 
>  
> 
> Originally written on 5 August 2011.

The last few weeks are the worst ones, choked in preparations that seem to change moment to moment. This isn’t Sebastian Moran’s strength--he’s the one who goes in and makes sure a job gets finished, but he doesn’t have the head for all of the feints and jabs in this battle of wits between Holmes and Moriarty, so he just waits for Jim to tell him when everything is set.

Seb knows that Jim enjoys the chase. More than enjoyment, it’s obsession. Jim hardly sleeps, getting reports from his informants on where Holmes has been seen last, sending out new orders to his men. Jim has too much pride to let Holmes win. He’s going to win this fight or die trying, and there isn’t much Seb can do to convince him that this fight isn’t worth it.

“I’ll take care of him for you,” Seb says one night in Jim’s flat while Jim reads the latest reports. “Just tell me where to go.”

“When it’s time,” Jim says mildly without looking up.

“This isn’t a game,” Seb says, with more anger than he had intended. This time Jim does look up and smiles, though he doesn’t respond. Seb turns away.

Holmes flees the country at the end of April, taking his doctor with him. “Take anything you can’t live without,” Jim tells Seb as they follow, and later that night they receive news that the police have raided their flat and arrested nearly all of their subordinates. It’s just them now, but Jim doesn’t slow down, and Seb knows that this is the end. Jim has sacrificed everything for this game. It must end.

“You’ve always been loyal to me,” Jim says to him at the beginning of May when they reach Rosenlaui. Rumor has it that Holmes and Watson are in Meiringen. Between the two villages lies Reichenbach Falls, and Jim has decided that this is where they’ll make their final stand.

“I’m not going to fail you,” Seb replies.

“I know you’ll pull the trigger when you have to.” Jim pulls on his coat. “But can I trust you to hold off until then?”

“Yes,” Seb lies, and Jim watches him with dark eyes.

Seb takes his spot in the rocks over the falls, where he has a clear view of the cliffs below. Setting up his sniper rifle gives him something to do that takes his mind off the job ahead. Holmes and Watson wander in, muffled against the chill. Watson gets the phone call right on schedule and begins to jog back to Meiringen, giving Holmes an apologetic wave. Holmes watches him go.

Jim squeezes Seb’s shoulder, a quick, unexpected gesture. He doesn’t say anything to Seb, but he doesn’t need to. Seb has always been able to read Jim like a book, as clearly as he imagines Jim can read him. He knows what Jim intends to do. And, as he watches Jim pick his way down the rocks to meet Holmes below, Seb knows that he isn’t going to let that happen.


End file.
